Simplicity can be wonderful.
I wanted to eat somewhere fancy when my son and I took a trip to Austin, TX, in the spring of 2016 to visit the University of Texas in advance of his making the big decision about where to do his undergraduate degree. My son wanted simplicity on his plate that night while he was pondering his future.
We compromised on Second Bar + Kitchen, a trendy place downtown with upscale comfort food and a warm, welcoming atmosphere.
Score! It was a great choice. We had the pomodoro pizza, a memorable pie with a thin, crispy crust that took on that nutty flavor a crust gets when it is browned just right, a deep red sauce made from san marzano tomatoes, Italian sausage, creamy and slightly salty fresh mozzarella and the woodsy bite of fresh basil. I WANT THAT PIZZA RIGHT NOW.
I’m so glad I took a picture, although neither of us will forget that memorable meal on a very memorable trip. Picking a college is a big deal! The University of Texas turned out to be all that and more for my son’s Jazz Composition education and degree.
What I don’t remember is which of us had this delectable-looking dessert. I don’t think it was me, do you, or else I WOULD be able to remember. I probably had a glass of wine while my son dived into this divine chocolate shake-looking creation.
My son’s four years at college in Austin zoomed by like a muscle car on the freeway, and the last semester was COVID-quarantine time, so we never made it back to Second Bar + Kitchen. We probably would have had a meal there together just before he left for grad school in Miami to study Studio Jazz Arranging, if only the coronavirus hadn’t put a stop to all activities like that. Sigh.
I’m sharing this 2016 meal memory for a couple of reasons:
- I miss dining in restaurants.
- I stumbled upon the picture and was reminded how delicious a straightforward but very well-executed pizza can be. We do homemade pizza quite a bit here at Glover Gardens (the Grill-Meister is a whiz at the dough), but sometimes we load them up with so many goodies and toppings that you have to go on a search party to find the crust.
- Second Bar + Kitchen is on a “pandemic pause” at the downtown Austin location, their original site. They’re still open in the Domain NORTHSIDE location, inside the Archer Hotel. I’m hoping that the downtown location will not become just one more permanent victim of COVID-19.
- I want to go back to Second Bar + Kitchen, post-pandemic, when my son comes back to Texas to visit, and it’s more likely to happen if we commit to it in the blog. How about it, Thomas? Heck, let’s all meet there in the fall of 2021 – surely this’ll be over by then… ???
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